


A Late Night Charade

by bwblack



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-29
Updated: 2012-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 07:09:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwblack/pseuds/bwblack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly's life isn't at all like a movie.   Post TGG.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Late Night Charade

Molly tossed and turned in her bed, replaying the meeting between Sherlock and Jim, trying to piece together enough clues to answer the main question that had niggled at her since. 

He’s gay? 

Sherlock says he is, and Sherlock’s….

But the other night, after Glee…

After Glee?

Molly had never been able to turn off her mind while she waited for sleep. She always spent at least an hour going over the events of the day, all of the things she’d wished she’d done differently, said differently, hadn’t done, hadn’t said… 

Tonight, Sherlock and Jim duelled in her head. She doubted she’d sleep at all.

She reached for the remote and settled for a late night showing of some movie she’d never seen all the way through. Cary Grant was a dashing older man. Audrey Hepburn was effortlessly glamorous, and oh so very young. 

Audrey Hepburn’s Reggie Lambert learned her husband wasn’t the man he purported to be. If Audrey Hepburn could get taken in, what chance did mere mortals have? 

Molly was doomed.

Jim was probably gay.

Sherlock was clearly uninterested, no matter how many shades of lipstick she tried.

She was unlikely to strike the fancy of Cary Grant.

But then Cary Grant was gay, wasn’t he? 

Sherlock would know.

Bugger that. 

She got out of bed, turned off the television, and stepped into the shower. She hoped the hot water would relax her body, if not her mind.

She turned the tap as hot as it would go, which was not nearly hot enough. There was never enough hot water in her building; none at all early in the morning when people scurried about getting ready for work, and apparently precious little in the wee hours when nobody was up but Molly and the resident of 6A. 6A kept company at all hours… 

She doubted Audrey Hepburn ever wanted for hot water. 

She worked the shampoo into her hair, trying to create a thick lather that would give her the illusion that the expensive, miracle formula she’d spent entirely too much on really was making her hair thicker, shinier, and fuller. 

She had her doubts. 

It would’ve worked for Audrey Hepburn.

It did work for Sherlock Holmes.

Jim liked it.

She’d just dipped her head into the stream to start rinsing it out when she heard the bell, a knock, and then the bell again. 

“Wrong flat!” She shouted.

The banging continued.

She cut the water, “You want 6A!” Middle of the night visitors always wanted 6A. 

The banging continued.

 

Soap dripped into her eyes.  
“SIX A!” 

 

The pounding persisted.  
She stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around her dripping body, another around her sopping wet, sudsy hair, and stormed to the front door. “You want 6A!” She yelled as she went.

“Police!” a male voice answered.

She tried to look through the peep hole but her stinging, watering eyes refused to focus. She unlatched all but the chain and pulled the door open the smallest of cracks. “Six A.”

An odd expression crossed the officer’s face, “Molly Hooper?”

“Yes.”

“We’re here to speak with you. It is a matter of some urgency.”

“Right,” her pulse quickened. 

“May we come in?” 

“Is everything all right?” Of course it wasn’t. The police arriving at her door hours before dawn. They didn’t make social calls, not in the middle of the night, not to her. She closed the door, unhooked the chain, and opened the door wide to allow the officers entrance.

Three officers, apparently. Two were in uniform, one in plain clothes. She’d seen him before, the plain clothes officer, always not quite shaven, not quite crisp, but never as wrinkled as he appeared now. Cary Grant never wrinkled. 

“Maybe you should…” He motioned with his hand, but his eyes focused not where he pointed, but at a spot near his feet. 

Molly looked down, caught sight of her toweled body, and blushed from her head to her toes. “I’ll just…” She muttered as she backed quickly towards her bedroom. 

She nearly died when she caught sight of herself in the bedroom mirror. Had this happened in a movie, the towel wrapped around her body would have ended at the most flattering part of her leg and the towel wrapped around her hair would leave one long, perfect strand free to frame her face.

She wasn’t in a movie. Her terrycloth hem ended far too high on one leg, nearly obscenely high. The other leg was somehow covered down to her knee. The asymmetry of it might have been fashionable in a different decade, or on a different person, but on her it seemed like she lacked even the most basic ability to cover herself.

The loose strands of hair peeking out of her towel were a soppy, soggy mess that didn’t even manage to draw attention away from the red, puffy, watery eyes she’d dripped shampoo into earlier.

She wanted to curl up in her bed and die.

Wait, there was a homicide detective in her flat. Maybe somebody really had died. This thought focused her immediately. Why else would that detective be here? She quickly dressed in the nearest thing she could find, pyjamas… not exactly the magically immaculate, wrinkle free, little black number Audrey Hepburn undoubtedly had always at the ready.

She rewrapped her hair in the towel and went out to greet the detective. 

“Hi, sorry I…. shower.” And she could use a script writer.

 

“Sorry to bother you so late, I’m Detective Inspector…”  
“I know who you are, you sometimes work with Sherlock.” She’d noticed him. He’d clearly never noticed her, typical. 

“Sometimes he works with me.” Lestrade amended. 

“Right,” She wondered how to ask who died without being quite so blunt about it. She had an irritating tendency towards either saying nothing at all or entirely too much. “I’m Molly, Molly…”

“Hooper, you work at Bart’s. You make very detailed notes on your cases,”  
She gulped. “You’ve read my….”

“You’re seeing a man by the name of Jim Moriarty?”

“Yes… er… maybe…” If he’s not gay.

“I’m afraid there has been an explosion….”

“Jim? Jim’s been in an explosion?”

“Yes, I’m….”

“He’s….” She searched for a word other than dead. She hoped he’d interrupt.  
He didn’t.

“He’s dead?”

“Officially.” Lestrade looked over at the uniformed officers. 

They were not so subtly studying the photographs on her wall.

She should ask them to sit down, offer them a cuppa. “I’m sorry?” What did that mean? Officially? “You have doubts?”

“We have reason to believe that might not be the case, yes. And we need to know if he mentioned anywhere, anywhere he might go if he were in trouble, family, friends… anything.”

She gulped. 

“I’m sorry, I know this must be a bit of a shock.”

“He was in an explosion?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Details are still….”

“When?”

“Tonight, 3 and a half hours ago.”

“And he’s officially dead?”

“Yes.”

“You have a body, then?”

“No.”

“Then…”

“He, Sherlock Holmes, and John Watson were….”

“Sherlock’s been in an explosion?”

“Yes.”

“Is he….. dead?” It got easier the more times she said it.

“No, he’s… singed a bit. He’ll be fine. So will Doctor Watson.”

“Right,” she always forgot about him. “How were they in an explosion together?” She wasn’t so caught up in a fantasy that she had illusions that Sherlock would defend her honor from a potentially gay boyfriend. Telling her had been cruel or maybe kind, in a perverse way, but doing more? No, not Sherlock.

“The details are still… How well did you know Mr. Moriarty?”

“Not well at all, less than I thought, apparently.” Sweet Jim in an explosion? 

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded. 

“He…” She looked down at her feet, up at the uniformed officers, and back down at her feet. “He wasn’t what he seemed.”

“Yes…”

“He was… he was using me to get closer to Sherlock?” She made the connections as quickly as the words left her mouth. She nearly laughed at the absurdity of it all. As if she had some special access to the great Sherlock Holmes.

“That is possible,” Lestrade admitted. “We need as much information as possible about…”

“I don’t know anything about him, nothing at all. He used the same brand of shampoo as Sherlock. It’s in my shower.” She blushed.

“Did he leave anything here? A computer? A laptop?”

“No.” She shook her head again. He came. They watched Glee. She gushed about her work, about Sherlock. He ate it up with a spoon. She’d brought this on herself, really. Then he left. 

“Did he ever take you to his flat?”

“No,” She shook her head. He never took her anywhere. She deserved better than that, being used. 

“Did you know anything…?”

“I didn’t know him at all.” She sighed. “We should sit down, I’m sorry. I don’t know where my manners have…”

Lestrade swayed slightly but declined. “We’re almost done here. Do you think he might try to contact you? We could get somebody to watch your phones… get a trace on him if he… It’s important.”

“He wouldn’t call…”

“You’re sure?”

“Do whatever you think is best… but… I wasn’t… I didn’t… I’m not anybody.” 

“I’m sorry, if you think of anything….” He reached into his wallet and pulled out a card, “any time, day or night.”

She took the card and nodded, numb. 

“I’m sorry to bother you.”

She shrugged.

“If there is anything I can do….” 

A sly smile crossed her face. “Unless the Metropolitan Police offers courses in picking less crap boyfriends…” She couldn’t believe she’d said it out loud.

He gave her a wide grin and suddenly looking years younger. “I’d have to take that course myself.”

“Oh you’re like Cary Grant, then?” She blushed hot, red. She couldn’t believe she said that. 

“Charming, witty, funny, ageless and able to wear the hell out of a suit? I’d like to think so, but I rather doubt…” He smiled.

“Right,” she laughed, moving to the door to see them out. 

The uniformed officers left first. “I’m really sorry to have bothered…”

“It’s your job.” She shrugged.

“One thing…” he looked back.

“Yeah?”

“You’re somebody.”

She looked down at her feet, then back up at him. “You think?”

He nodded.

“Thank you.” She smiled. Maybe he was Cary Grant, after all.


End file.
